So Sam lake comes in as himself in Alan wake 2 as the actor for Alex Casey in the films based on books of Alex Casey that Alan wake wrote while Alex Casey is essentially max Payne and Alex Casey is also a real detective who is also acted and voiced by the people who act and voice the fictional Alex Casey based on Alan wakes books and this is all written by Sam lake So there's multiple max Paynes and multiple Alex Casey's and multiple Sam lakes and multiple James McCaffrey's and Alex Casey is a fictional detective who is Sam and James but Alex has a book series written about a detective of the same name who isn't actually Alex Casey just a detective written by Alan wake but the fictional Alex Casey movie features Sam lake and James mcaffery as that fictional Alex Casey who's based off Alan wakes book who's character shares the name to a real but fictional guy who's acted and voiced by the same people who act and voice the fictional fictional movie adaption of a guy who shares his name but the actor and voice actor of him there is a fictional version of those respective actors

For all the marketing Nintendo had for this I was expecting something unique to break the old formula. It would make sense considering most other Nintendo franchises have seen major evolutions but unfortunately this is more of the same although the levels are all very unique, the defining feature here is that each level has some unique gimmick to it.
I have huge gripes with Nintendo treating Mario as a franchise that has to be extremely easy, it was one of my main issues with Mario Odyssey and it continues here as well. The levels in this game are incredibly trivial and there is rarely a moment in which obstacles are compounded to create some challenging mix of different mechanics, this is probably due to the fact that the game refuses to build on something before switching to the next mechanic. What other people may like here is what I ended up dreading, that joke people make about water levels in video games being the worst because they change a mechanically solid game into something completely different happens here in nearly every level. A majority of wonder flowers result in you having to fiddle with a different control scheme or witnessing a canned event, it gets tiring fast and the random wow factor doesn't work out when the surprise is getting to play a boring minigame.
I also don't understand the purpose of badges, it feels like they were added ontop of the game towards the end of development with how I've been able to break some levels by using them. Levels aren't designed around the badges and the badges generally make the game far easier so I'd usually avoid using them. It's a great concept in theory but I really dislike the execution here, they're basically glorified cheatcodes.
The constant narration from flowers is also incredibly annoying and I don't understand why it exists, they generally make the game feel like it's bordering on baby sensory content when I'm constantly hearing the same guy make comments in the genre of ERM well that just happened!
I wish the overall structure of this game was different but it's still the same old formula, which isn't a terrible thing as the level design is still solid and it's consistently of a pretty high quality. I just think all the new things added here don't add any value and only make the game worse. It feels like when adding new stuff they prioritized the wow factor more than considering if it's actually fun or should be in the game.

ALSO WHY IS THERE A STORY WHY IS THERE SO MUCH FUCKING DIALOGUE I HAD TO SKIP SO MUCH DIALOGUE IN THIS GAME WHO CAME UP WITH THE IDEA THAT 2D MARIO WAS MISSING OUT ON A STORY LIKE WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THAT WHY DO I GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE FLOWER PEOPLE

Early years of VR and hopping on Rec Room through 2017 to 2018 was some of the most whimsical and comfy gaming ever. This is one of those things where I hear the OST and get like ten billion memories, there is just something so engrossing about the aesthetic in this and chilling out with one or two other people in some cozy environment for like 2 hours and then taking off the headset and forgetting ur still in ur room. It's really odd that rec room goes for a simplistic low detail aesthetic but I've never been more immersed in VR than I have been here. VR has never peaked more than the early rec room years and idk if I'll ever get the same enjoyment from it but I'm still very very biased and very fond of this game.